


3 Rounds and a Sound

by TryingToBe



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Canonical Character Death, F/M, Implied/Referenced Abuse, POV Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson-centric, anti-skyeward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-13
Updated: 2021-02-13
Packaged: 2021-03-13 17:20:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29405415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TryingToBe/pseuds/TryingToBe
Summary: “I would never hurt you.”“I want you to know, that I would never hurt you.”“I would never hurt her.”-A look at three different relationships across three different moments in time.
Relationships: Lincoln Campbell/Skye | Daisy Johnson, Skye | Daisy Johnson/Daniel Sousa
Comments: 16
Kudos: 62





	3 Rounds and a Sound

**Author's Note:**

> Just in case you missed it in the tags anti-Ward and anti-skyeward

_You can think that you’re in love, when you’re really just in pain._

Daisy never fell in love with Ward. Not even when she was still Skye. She fell for something, that was clear. An idea. The comfort that he was someone who had seen violence, and instead of seeking power he joined SHIELD where he protected people. She fell for the promise that he would teach her how to protect people too. That they understood each other and were in it together. But he wasn’t who she thought he was, and the person she liked, the person she could have fallen for, didn’t exist.

The first time that Ward was mad at her, really mad, was the first time she thought she understood him. He told her about his brother and maybe he wasn’t the robotic tool she thought. After he saved her from Quinn, after she decided she’s in this now no turning back, they talked.

He was holding the bag for her as she punched it. Her hands were wrapped in cloth, from her wrists to her knuckles. The fabric scratched against her skin as she struck the bag over and over again. Skye found comfort in the repetition, the burning in her arms and the feeling that she was doing something.

She blurted out, “That stuff you said, about your brother…I get that.” She didn’t look at him as she said it, just kept hitting the bag. “And I, I want to protect people too. I want to be able to protect myself.”

Ward said nothing for a moment, and then warned, “It’s going to be hard. I’m going to push you. It’s not just going to be punching a bag.”

Skye stopped at that and looked at him seriously. “I can handle it,” she said firmly.

Ward nodded, then looked at her with a focused intensity, compelling her to understand. “You need to know, I’m not like them. I would never hurt you.”

“I believe you.”

She did, too. When Daisy thinks back on it, this is the lie that hurt the most.

He said it again, later. After he kidnapped her the first time and while she was handcuffed to the railing. _“I would never hurt you.”_ He said it with the emphasis just slightly on _you_ , like that was supposed to be romantic. He said it like he actually believed it. Like he didn’t think he already had. But when he said it the second time, she knew she would never believe him.

Daisy wonders, after it’s all over. After all the manipulation and all the death and all the horror. She wonders if he thought because he never hit her, that made it okay. She wonders if he thought because he claimed he loved her, that made it better.

In the end, it was over the moment he killed Eric Koenig.

And all Ward ever gave her was pain.

_I was calling, for the last time._

Daisy fell in love with Lincoln in empty spaces. In the gaps and in the silence. In the pause before her powers kick started his and his heart started beating again. In the time that passed between their brief phone calls. In between their breaths before she hung up the phone. In the moments when they were apart. They were always missing each other. But she fell with the promise that they would come back to each other, in the end.

The first time they fought, really fought, she walked away. They were arguing about the Inhuman vaccine and emotions were running high and their voices got raised. And maybe it was a conditioned response more than it ever came naturally, but Daisy knew that when an argument devolved the way theirs had, nothing was going to come of it. So she turned and left. She wondered if he was relieved.

They talked after they made up. They sat on her bed eating dinner, him cross legged, her with her legs tucked under her, diagonally from each other. Daisy wore one of his sweatshirts with the soft fabric of the long sleeves pulled down over her knuckles.

Lincoln suddenly blurted out, “I’m sorry for what I said earlier, about hacking your way though life…”

He looked at her earnestly, but Daisy looked down at her food and picked at a grain of rice with her chop sticks. She shrugged, trying to pretend it didn’t hurt. “It’s fine,” she said.

Lincoln shook his head. “It was hurtful, and stupid, and I didn’t mean it.”

Daisy frowned and sighed, looking up at him. “So why’d you say it?”

It was Lincoln’s turn to look away. He shifted in a way that Daisy knew meant he wanted to pace. He took a breath and admitted, “That’s what happens when I lose control. I get angry. And I lash out. I never wanted you to see that side of me.”

“That’s not really how this works,” said Daisy, but not unkindly.

“I know...but I, I don’t want to be the kind of person who hurts the people I, the people I care about.”

Daisy wondered if he was going to say love. She wondered if she was ready to hear it.

“You’re not,” she reassured him. “Thats _why_ you’re not,” she added. Lincoln was self-aware. And Daisy knew he tried, always, to leave his past behind and be better. They were similar in that regard.

“I just don’t want to say something I can’t take back,” he whispered. 

It was not until later, until after she learned the truth about his ex-girlfriend that Daisy really understood. Then all his fear and self-doubt made a little more sense. _“I want you to know, that I would never hurt you,”_ he promised. She believed him. And maybe Daisy fell in love with him for _that_ , too. It never occurred to her that he might someday have to hurt her, if he wanted to save her. It probably never occurred to him either.

When Daisy looks back on it, she wonders. She wonders if he was always destined for the sky and she was always destined for the earth and they were meant to meet each other in the transition. So that they became the people they needed to be to fulfill their purpose. Then she thinks, no. Lincoln was a hero because he chose to be one. And this was the price they paid. He died with it, and she lived with it.

In the end, the words Lincoln said that he could never take back were, “I love you.”

Daisy never knew they could hurt so much.

_Like whispering, “You know me. You know me.”_

Daisy falls in love with Daniel in their overlapping spaces. They move and they change with each other. Their differences are a constant ebb and flow, a push and pull, a balance and an exchange. They are always intertwined, always functioning separately, but always working best when they are together. She falls in their quiet conversations and his constant steady presence. She falls more the more time they spend together.

The first time they fight, really fight, it is after a mission gone wrong. It turned out okay, in the end. But Daisy made a call, and it was one that risked herself to protect the team. After, when they all get back to the base and her and Daniel go back to their room, they start to argue. Their voices raise as they snap about _was that actually necessary_ , and _why was she being so reckless_ , and _what else was she supposed to do._ And Daisy just, can’t. The instinct to _leave, run, get out,_ when the arguing really starts is apparently still there. She turns and starts walking to the door. She barely gets more than a step when Daniel speaks up, his voice quiet and steady.

“Don’t walk away. Please.”

It is the _please_ that gets her to stop. Daisy turns and faces him, body tense and coiled. He approaches her calmly. She doesn’t move and so he reaches out and takes her left arm in both of his. He reaches for the clip on her gauntlet that keeps it tightly locked and then pauses, waiting to see if she wants to stop him. When she makes no move to do so, he unsnaps the gauntlet and pulls it gently over her arm. Daisy lets out a long shuttering breath. He repeats the motion on the other arm and then places both gauntlets on the bed. Then he takes her hands in his, running his thumbs gently over her bruised knuckles. His hands are calloused but his skin is soft against hers. He pulls her hands towards his lips and kisses her left palm.

“Be here with me,” he begs her, his voice full of a quiet vulnerability, as he brings their hands towards his chest. He is scared, she knows. Scared that this time when she leaves she won’t come back. That he, that Kora, that someone, won’t be there to pick her up after. Daisy closes her eyes and intertwines their fingers, letting the tension leave her body. Daniel leans forward, pressing their foreheads together.

“I just don’t want to let anybody down,” Daisy confesses with the invisible weight of a hundred ghosts.

Daniel replies, “I don’t want to lose you.”

Daisy steps back with a sniff and wipes at her wet eyes. She takes a few breaths, collecting herself. He waits for her to speak.

“I don’t, um, I don’t know how to talk about things…things that hurt.” And there were so many things. So many that the weight of them all seemed to crush her windpipe and keep all the words buried in her chest, wrapped around her lungs.

Daniel nods at that, “In my time, men didn’t really talk.” He glances down at his leg, and Daisy knows he might have wanted to talk about it, if anyone had given him the space to.

“I know.”

“Seemed kind of stupid. Like, it was expecting too much and not enough, you know?”

“Yeah,” Daisy says simply, because that was exactly what it was, even now. And she’s not surprised he gets it.

“So,” says Daniel his tone indicating they have a problem to solve, “how about we figure it out together?”

The offer lingers in the air for just a moment. It isn’t a solution to their argument. Their jobs are dangerous and they are going to have to have that conversation. They are probably going to have to have it more than once. But strangely enough, the prospect of it suddenly doesn’t seem so terrifying. They are partners, Daisy knows.

“Deal.”

Daisy takes a breath, feeling her lungs expand, the constricting knot around them loosening somewhat. Daniel lets out a breath of his own and the air between them feels lighter.

After a moment, his eyes light up suddenly, like he has an idea. “Hey, do you hear that?”

“No..” Daisy says slowly, quirking her eyebrow in question. The corners of his mouth lift up as Daniel walks over to their record player.

“They’re playing our song,” he says as he puts on a record and the music starts playing.

Daisy smiles and rolls her eyes. “Dork,” she says fondly.

Daniel laughs. “Yes.”

He holds out his hand for her and she takes it, trying and failing to hold back her charmed smile. He puts his arms around her waist and she wraps her arms around his neck. There’s no space to actually dance in this room, and Daisy still doesn’t know how anyway, so they just stand and sway. She looks up at him and his eyes sparkle the way they always do when he succeeds in giving her a reason to smile.

“Hi,” Daisy whispers it like a secret.

“Hi,” Daniel whispers back with a smile.

In the end, Daisy fell, and it didn’t hurt.

It felt like coming home.

**Author's Note:**

> Songs quoted in order: Moral of the Story by Ashe, You Are a Memory by Message to Bears, 3 Rounds and a Sound by Blind Pilot
> 
> “They’re playing our song” is the opening line of 3 Rounds and a Sound which is what I imagine they were dancing to at the end. It was written as a wedding song, and Moral of the Story is a divorce song :) Thanks for reading and I’d love to hear what you thought


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